Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes – September 17, 2018

Blizzard EntertainmentSeptember 17, 2018

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until September 24. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

NOTE: This patch also includes balance changes for an update that will be hitting the live servers later this week. You can find those notes here.

Quick Navigation:

General

The Fall of Kings Questline is now available for players. The hunt is on for the generals of the Raven Lord!

Loot Chests have been replaced with Seasonal Loot chests for the duration of this event.

Ranked Play

Team League

Team League now supports all party sizes, including solo players.

All solo players will need to choose which League to play for the first time after the patch.

Developer Comment: Heroes of the Storm is primarily a team-based experience and, with this change, we’re hoping to make it easier to have that experience without putting restrictions on party size. In our current system, competitive solo players do not have many opportunities to find groups of players to play with in a ranked queue. To give these players more options for their competitive experience, we have removed all party size queue restrictions from Team League. Our hope is that this leads to a more robust Team League experience and that solo players find more regular groups to play with.

Battlegrounds

Garden of Terror

Garden of Terror has received significant gameplay and layout changes. Find out more in the Garden of Terror Spotlight video or on the updated Garden of Terror Battleground site.

Art

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Kerrigan and Brightwing have received some new and updated art to coincide with their gameplay updates.

The initial cast of Ultralisk is now directional skill shot that causes the Ultralisk to charge in the targeted direction until impacting an enemy Hero. It deals 250 damage and stuns for .5 seconds to the first Hero it hits.

Assimilation (Trait)

Shield amount increased from 10 to 15% of damage dealt

Talents

Level 1

Siphoning Impact (Q)

New functionality:

Using Ravage on an enemy Hero grants an additional 90 Assimilation Shield

Assimilation Mastery (Trait)

Moved from level 7

No longer increases the duration of Assimilation Shield

In addition to increasing Kerrigan’s Health and Mana Regeneration by 100% while Assimilation is active, now also causes Regeneration Globes to grant 40 Assimilation Shield per second while active

!Quest: Every time an enemy Minion or Hero dies within 1.5 seconds of being damaged by Ravage, increase Ravage's damage by .5 (5 for Heroes), up to 50

!Reward: After reaching 50 damage, gain an additional 50 damage

New Talent - Kinetic Fulmination (W)

Damaging an enemy increases the damage of Kerrigan's next Impaling Blades by 15%. Stacks up to 150%. Lasts 10 seconds.

Psionic Pulse (E)

New functionality:

Primal Grasp deals damage a second time 2.5 seconds after the initial burst

Clean Kill (Q)

Removed

Envenom (Active)

Removed

Level 7

New Talent - Queen of Blades (Q)

Every time Primal Grasp's pull or explosion hits an enemy Hero, reduce the cooldown of Ravage by 4 seconds

New Talent - Boundless Fury (Q)

Casting Ravage on an enemy Hero grants a charge of Ravage. Can only occur on each Hero once every 10 seconds

Bladed Momentum (Passive)

Now only triggers when attacking enemy Heroes

Now works with splash damage from Fury of the Swarm

Blade Torrent (W)

Removed

Level 13

New Talent - Psionic Barrier (E)

Kerrigan gains 15 Spell Armor for 4 seconds for every enemy Hero she hits with Primal Grasp's pull or explosion

New Talent - Volatile Power (Trait)

Increase the base Shield amount gained from Assimilation by 15%, but reduce the duration of Assimilation Shields from 6 to 3 seconds

New Talent - Chrysalis (Active)

Activate to place Kerrigan in a chrysalis with 550 Health for 5 seconds. Kerrigan regenerates 5% Health per second while inside the chrysalis. 90 second cooldown.

Eviscerate (Q)

Removed

Double Strike (Q)

Removed

Queen’s Rush (Active)

Removed

Level 16

New Talent - Mounting Potency (Q)

Casting Ravage on an enemy increases Kerrigan's Spell Power by 5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 40%

New Talent - Painful Spikes (W)

After stunning an enemy with Impale, Kerrigan deals an additional 75 damage the next 6 times she damages them within the next 5 seconds

New Talent - Unbridled Energy (R)

When Kerrigan damages a Hero with a Heroic Ability she gains 30% Spell Power for 4 seconds

Aggressive Defense (Trait)

Removed

Essence for Essence (Active)

Removed

Overdrive (Active)

Removed

Level 20

Omegastorm (R)

New Functionality:

Maelstrom's duration is increased by .125 seconds every time it damages an enemy Hero

New Talent - Assimilation Blades (Trait)

Damaging an enemy increases Kerrigan's Basic Attack damage by 4%, up to 40%, for 5 seconds

Psionic Shift (Active)

Shield amount is now doubled when damaging enemy Heroes

Nexus Blades (Passive)

Removed

Developer Comment: Kerrigan is receiving an update to increase the tactical depth of using her abilities and increase the impact that her Talents have on her playstyle. We've reduced the range on Ravage but added a second charge so that smart Kerrigan players can use it to maneuver on the battlefield, as well as utilize a lot of her Talents to get the most out of the ability. We've added a secondary explosion to Primal Grasp so that Kerrigan will want to continue to worry about her positioning after her initial engagement occurs, as well as provide the opportunity for new Talent interactions. We've also added a skillshot component to Ultralisk so that the Heroic can feel like it has a big moment when it is first unleashed. Overall, Kerrigan should play mostly the same, but have increased room for mastery and playstyle specific builds.

Arcane Flare slows Heroes by 20% for 3 seconds, or 40% if hit by the center of Arcane Flare

Peekaboo! (Z)

Moved from Level 4

Added functionality:

Also grants the you and your target a temporary health Shield

New Talent – Critical Mist (D)

If Calming Mist removes a status effect from an ally, instantly heal them for 200

Level 13

Ice Block (Active)

Removed

Shield Dust (E)

Removed

Pixie Boost (E)

Movement Speed decay duration increased from 1.5 to 3 seconds

Movement Speed bonus reduced to 40%

New Talent – Safety Dust (E)

Increase the duration of Pixie Dust by 1 second. Healing dealt by Brightwing is increased by 25% on targets with Pixie Dust

New Talent – Pixie Power (E)

Lower the cooldown of Pixie Dust by 3 seconds and increase the Spell Armor it grants to 50

Level 16

Bouncy Dust (E)

Removed

Hardened Focus (Passive)

Removed

New Talent – Phase Out (Active)

Activate to phase out and become invulnerable for .5 seconds

20 second cooldown

New Talent – Hush (Q)

Enemy Heroes hit with the center of Arcane Flare are Silenced for 1 second and deal 25% less damage for 3 seconds.

Level 20

Double Wyrmhole (R)

Removed

Continuous Winds (R)

Removed

Revitalizing Mist (D)

Removed

Storm Shield (Active)

Removed

New Talent – Invisible Friends (R)

Blink Heal grants you and the target stealth. They are unrevealable for .5 seconds. While under this effect, they regenerate 20 Health Per Second

New Talent – Intensive Winds (R)

Lower the cooldown of Emerald Wind to 3 seconds. It now costs 200 Mana

New Talent – Faerie Protector (Active)

Activate to instantly cast Pixie Dust on all nearby allied Heroes

60 second cooldown

New Talent – Speedy Dragon (Passive)

Gain 20% permanent movement speed

Developer Comment: Late last year we decided that we wanted to add a fun mini-game to Brightwing utilizing her Arcane Flare as the focal point. As it often happens, while making the initial changes we started diving in deeper and deeper. Nearly a year later, we are excited to showcase a fully updated talent tree alongside some fundamental game-play changes to our resident Faerie Dragon. With a baseline AoE cleanse-type effect and added healing potential to her Arcane Flare, Brightwing should bring some new major play-making abilities to her team.